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Stonehearth Defense Industry
'A One-House Military-Industrial Complex' House Stonehearth brought all the weight of the family history from Cormyr and Candlekeep to bear when they created their guard against the challenges of Baldur’s Gate. This organization reflected a collection of best practices through history from lands far and wide, with the standards and practices, research and development tapping forgotten or outright forbidden knowledge. This included leveraging the production capacity of commerce and industry in the trade of War. Though mercenary actions were de rigueur for a private force arms, that was something the Stonehearth Arms had little time or interest in. They were patriars of the city, defacto defenders, and had their hands full protecting the bustling business of magical merchandise. By the mid-12th century DR (the 1300s), Stonehearth was already pioneering process in mechanical engineering. The House was among the first to make steam machines, including Steam cannons, do actual work. Soon after, they adapted the lessons to harness arcane power to do the same, creating motive force for machines in mass production. It wasn’t unique in the form of harnessing utility magic, but it was the first systematic application. A Philosophical Quandry Stoneheath was a diversified merchant company, but by the 1320's, the bread and butter had already become the arcane consumables: spell scrolls and potions. In a fashion, those were already munitions – weapons of war – but the audience for those was manageable. What they didn't want to do was ever have to face their own guns. Or face guns based on their own designs. The problem with the business of war, in a strictly-business sense, was where that business went. There was the business of war – or the business of anything else. While selling Scrolls of Fireballs was just under that threshold, selling their famous repeating compound crossbows was just over the threshold. Selling their much-feared, much-coveted firearms was way over that threshold. Quality Control: Arming the Troops By the 1420s, now in North Point Keep, their progress in training and conditioning caught up. This was about enhancements – or more specifically, enchantments. The game-changing ability of the Stonehearth Arms Academy to educate common warriors to be literate meant elevating a town guard into a force of soldier-scholars. Suddenly, skills and feats that were only the purview of upper level fighter-specialists were now accessible to the rank-and-file of a military force. None of these training points were unique, none of it was wish-level additions – simply the dangerous precedent of a noble family willing to invest in their people. For the likes of the ostentatious wealth of Waterdeep or Amn, this was a dangerous precedent indeed… This came together to create economies of scale. Stonehearth built – and could maintain – a military force of extraordinary mobility and literal firepower, yet do so at a reasonable cost. This gave the fiscal freedom to invest in the peacetime infrastructure which supported that force, and in turn created a feedback loop to the defensive investment. It maximized bang for the buck. There has always been a careful calculus of how much they developed the force versus how much they could expand the force. There has always been a conservative equation about maintaining safety and security within their borders versus how much to expand those borders. From NPK, it has been a very low cost to expand southward, down the quasi-peninsula. The time has come to carry the torch into the darkness, to shine the light as a beacon of civilization… 'The Production Lines' The Stonehearth Arms walks a balance between manufacturing their own munitions and maintaining a complex of contractors to get it done. They can – and do – produce a little of everything. For some key elements, such as the magical cannons, they are the sole producers. The production secrets don't even go out to their otherwise-trusted top-tier contractors. For most elements, including the devastating ranged individual weapons of the Arms' Fire Companies, production is distrubuted between a few trusted Houses whose fortunes are now inextricably tied to Stoneheath. The Letters of Authorization are a point of pride and extreme prejudice. The Cannons The Rifles The Pistols The Ammunition The Wands Ships Wagons The Stonehearth Merchant Company (SMC) has it's own wagon-production facility for experimental and short production runs. This includes concepts that have a mounted saker-sized cannon on the wagon, effectively turning it into a tank. Beyond the SMC, there are two preferred contractors that build most of the myriad of wagons used by the Arms. Both of these are based in Baldur's Gate, but both have facilities in the marquisate, just south of North Point Keep. Nine other wainwrights are scattered through the Marquisate, including two right outside North Point Keep that are popular sellers of commercial, industrial and personal carts and wagons, both animal-drawn and self-propelled (though the animal-powered are increasingly rare in the marquisate). Personal Armor Additional Gear Category:DM/GM Notes Category:Hall of Records